The Most OCD Video Games: Q-Bert, LEGO Batman, Mercenaries 2, and More



Earlier this year, the Philadelphia Research Center of Mental Illness Study found “an alarming rate of OCD” in kids who played 80s video games like Q-Bert. You know Q-Bert: the orange fuzzball with a birth canal-inspired nose who obsessively color-changes blocks.

As someone who jumps out of his skin when friends blitz through levels of Super Mario Bros. and ignore the goddamned coins, I don’t disagree with this study one bit. My OCD impulses, like most people’s, are all about controlling my environment—and the virtual landscapes in games are a perfect outlet for this. On the downside, Pac-Man’s all-consuming urge to eat every last dot gets channeled right through the person controlling him.

“I don’t think games cause ODC—it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain you’re born with,” says LPC, CAD Counselor Hillary Brady. “But if you have that issue, it could be another thing you struggle with…video games could be another one of your rituals. It would definitely fit for people with OCD who like to count or organize things repetitively.”

And that means it can’t just be 80s games that trigger obsessive impulses—there must be an entire list of modern titles we Howie Mandel-types may want to steer clear of.


“We often find that our OCD patients benefit from playing not-so-organized games like many of the 90’s Super Nintendo games based on movies, athletes and tv shows,” the Philadelphia study concludes. “[Compulsion for organization] is less likely because a video game based on Shaq has never had a clear objective.”

While most would argue that the objective of a Shaq video game is to suck harder than any game has ever sucked before, I’m unconvinced a lack of objective thwarts video game OCD (just as I’m unconvinced steering anyone toward 90s SNES games based on movies is a good thing).


An online search for “OCD Videogames” reveals more screeds against everything from Pokemon games (tagline: “Gotta catch ’em all! No seriously, I gotta catch ‘em all or I’ll have a shit-fit right here on your carpet”) to titles with an impossible amount of loot to collect, such as Too Human.

I now know why Super Mario Sunshine was a perfect storm of failed, big budget games. While half of the world hated Sunshine’s gameplay, the other half must have panicked over Sunshine’s main objective—to clean every inch of mud and dirt off of Mario’s surroundings. Just thinking about this task makes me want to touch a fire flower exactly 140 times. How about you?

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